


To Mother You

by Zivitz



Series: To Make A Home [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Babyfic, F/M, Gen, Motherhood, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28814055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zivitz/pseuds/Zivitz
Summary: Abby has some late night musings while feeding Rosalie.
Relationships: Abby Griffin/Marcus Kane
Series: To Make A Home [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090235
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	To Mother You

**Author's Note:**

> MANY MANY THANKS to Kelly for all the help and listening to me whine and complain. You're a doll.

Abby sat up and threw the covers off, listening to the cracking in her joints and spine as she put her feet on the cold floor. It was almost time for the baby’s feed and she had about enough time to get the milk warmed before all hell broke loose. She shuffled across the floor in Marcus’s socks, feeling every one of her 45 years as she prepared the bottle and dropped it in the saucepan of water they kept on the heater every family with young children was issued during the colder months.

Right on cue, Rosalie began making soft whimpering noises. She smiled at the memory of another little girl, the sound making her heart soft in more ways than one. For this girl, yes- squirming against her swaddle and bonnet slightly askew- but for that other one too, all soft blonde curls and fair skin glowing under the fluorescent lighting of the Ark.

It was different this time, she reflected as she cooed and hummed and placated the baby she never expected to have. She moved the baby’s basket from beside the bed to the table. Last time she’d had a crib for her child. A permanent place, a set structure in more ways than one, a routine that every new mother on the Ark knew and was expected to abide by and did without question because that’s just what you did.

Now, she thought as she gently unwrapped the swaddle and smiled at Rosalie’s surprised reaction to the chill in the room, there was none of that. There were few rules about rationing and efficiency when it came to child rearing. They’d learned quite a lot about having babies on the ground from Trikru, and most of it felt much more organic than anything they’d had on the Ark. Instead of four or six weeks of leave and then into care, mothers- and fathers- were free to care for their children as much as they were able. When Clarke was young it was normal to see mothers coming and going from the caring but still clinical setting of their station’s nursery. Now it was getting to be the norm to see young babies- and even older ones- carried in a sling or playing nearby while the adults worked. Children in care was more an opportunity than an expectation.

“But some things don’t change at all, do they, Rosie?” she asked softly, as she exchanged a wet diaper for a dry one. The baby didn’t seem particularly interested in what Abby had to say, her head moving back and forth seeking something that wasn’t there. Diaper and cover replaced and swaddle re-wrapped, Abby moved to the stove and shook a few drops of milk into her wrist.

“Just about perfect,” she whispered, and the baby latched onto the bottle, grunting and snorting and frothing a bit of milk out the sides of her mouth as she took her meal greedily. Abby straightened the little wool bonnet on the dark head and sank into the rocking chair Indra had gifted them. She lay her head back and rocked gently as the baby ate, letting the exhaustion settle over her. It was odd to think of herself as a new mother again. The first time she was young, younger than she'd planned, and while it had been tiring she'd also been a young doctor and used to being short on sleep.

"I've gotten spoiled in my old age," she murmured to no one in particular. The baby's eyes shifted to her at the sound of her voice, and Abby smiled. She tilted the bottle slightly to encourage the baby to finish what was left, partly because she needed to eat and partly not to waste the precious breast milk. They were lucky there was enough to sustain her in the first place, Abby hated the idea of her not getting the most out of every feeding. Rosalie was a fairly good eater, like Clarke had been, though the method was another difference between them.

She put the empty bottle aside and brought the baby to her shoulder, rubbing and patting her back by turns. Her mind strayed to those early days with Clarke and how intensely she had loved her baby, and began to wonder if she’d ever feel that way about this one. It wasn’t that she wasn’t wanted. While Abby hadn't been enthusiastic about taking on two children in diapers and one a newborn, she was getting to the point where she felt that this is where they both belonged.

At least she had since that awful day where they'd tried to place Rosalie with another family. Something in her had snapped, Rosalie’s absence forcing her to realize that she wasn't as ambivalent toward the concept of keeping these children as she'd thought. Something was missing without the baby, her family incomplete. 

But it didn’t automatically translate to feeling that tug of motherhood she knew she should feel. It made her doubt herself. Not her commitment so much as her ability to be the mother these children needed. To be the mother they _deserved_. At times it was like they had always been there, and at others it felt like caring for them was just another job she had to do. 

Rosalie burped softly, and Abby craned her neck to look. She was nearly asleep, eyes rolling back in her head. Tummy full and tucked into her swaddle, with a dry diaper and someone to rock her, she lacked for nothing. Or at least Abby hoped so, as she carefully put her in her padded basket and placed it next to Marcus’s side of the bed for the 5am feed he’d take. Satisfied that the baby was still asleep, Abby came around the bed and crawled in under the covers. She jerked when a familiar hand touched her shoulder; she didn’t think she’d woken him. Abby rolled over to find Marcus smiling lazily. 

“You’re so wonderful with her,” he whispered. His gaze was soft and loving, one she’d become accustomed to seeing on his face, but with an added element she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

“Am I?” she wondered aloud, that insecurity still weighing on her.

Marcus frowned slightly and propped himself up on an elbow. “You’re a wonderful mother. Why would you even question that?”

She sighed and shifted closer to him. “I don’t _feel_ very much like her mother,” she confessed. “Or Arthur’s.”

He lay back on his pillow and pulled her close. “I think that’s probably normal, Abby. We’ve only had them a month.”

She looked up at him sharply. “But it’s _not_ , Marcus. I know, because I had Clarke and it was just… instant. That feeling, that pull… it’s just not there this time.” She hesitated. “What’s wrong with me?”

Marcus dropped a kiss to the top of her head, then lay his cheek against her hair. “Nothing is wrong with you, Abby. Clarke was a part of you for nine months, of course you loved her the moment you saw her. You were finally getting to meet someone you felt you already knew.”

“I suppose that’s true,” she murmured against his chest.

“It is. How many times have adoptive mothers come to you worrying about bonding with their new child?” Adoption hadn’t been particularly common on the Ark, but with people being floated for nearly any crime it was a reality.

“That’s different, they were usually older,” she protested.

He rubbed her shoulder. “And how many fathers have come to you, afraid that they weren’t feeling anything for their children?”

“But they were _fathers_. And look at you, you’re a natural. I look at you and just feel like I’m missing something.”

She felt the rumble beneath her ear before the chuckle escaped his mouth. “Abby, I’m just doing what you’re doing.”

“You are?”

“I am.”

She hummed quietly. “I still think-”

“Too much,” he finished, and she slapped him lightly. The baby stirred and they both froze until they were sure she wasn’t going to wake up. 

“If you wake that baby, you’re the one who’s getting up with her.”

“Abby,” he whispered, ignoring her comment. “They’re ours, but they’re not _ours_. It’s going to take time to create that bond. You know this, you’re a doctor.”

“Knowing it and feeling it are two different things,” she muttered sullenly.

“This is what fathers go through all the time. They don’t get that special relationship mothers have with their children. They- we- have to work for it.”

She tilted her head upwards, eyeing him suspiciously. “And where did that speech come from?”

He cleared his throat quietly. “David Miller may have talked me through a crisis or two.” She opened her mouth to reply, but he knew what she was going to say. “I didn’t come to you because I needed an outside opinion. And while you’ve been a parent-”

“I’ve never been a father,” she finished, and he nodded against her head. “I just wish this were easier.”

“I know, me too. But we’ll get there. All of us.

Abby yawned and stretched an arm across his chest. “I _do_ love them,” she said drowsily.

“Of course you do,” he said, stroking her hair as she drifted off the sleep. “You’re their mother.”


End file.
